Somewhere in the Land of Earth.

Kicking the beaten and bruised-up person lying in front of them, Kakuzu said to Sasori, "If not for the requirement that Hiruko needed him alive, I really want to dig out this guy's heart!" ​​

There are only two things that Kakuzu desires, first is wealth and the other is heart, the desire of collecting as many good hearts as possible is almost instinctive to Kakuzu, therefore whenever Kakuzu encounters a strong shinobi in a battle, he will always have the urge to dig out their hearts.

Sasori also has a bit of greed in his eyes, "This Steel Release user was stronger than I expected, and dealing with him was more troublesome, he is actually quite strong; if made into a puppet I should be able to obtain a rare masterpiece."

Even with Sasori's high standards, he has to acknowledge the strength of the Steel Release user in front of him.

The fierce battle a while ago was not much difficult for Sasori or Kakuzu, but that was only because the Steel Release user knew nothing about their abilities, and was also affected by the poison that Sasori used.

If not for that, then the battle might have been much difficult, as the opponent's extreme defense and endurance courtesy to Steel Release made him a shinobi who matched the toughness and defense of the current Raikage if not the previous one.

After injecting the drug into the unconscious ninja's bloodstream, Kakuzu carried him by the neck and started walking towards the Land of Rain while muttering, "I hope that ritual would not destroy his heart."

Sasori remained silent and walked next to Kakuzu.

…

Somewhere in the Land of Bears.

A ninja wearing torn rags was constantly running through the forest.

Boom…

Boom…

Boom…

Suddenly a series of explosions sounded around him.

The sound of the explosions soon subsided and the dust cleared.

The shinobi who was running through the explosions suddenly turned around, threw several Shuriken in the direction of the enemy, and after immediately printing the hand seals, he shouted,

"Dark Release: Judgement!"

Whiish…

Accompanied by heavy winds, the tornado of Dark Chakra shot from the hands of the ragged ninja and rushed towards the sky.

Hiruko who was standing on the artificial bird had a Glasgow grin at this moment, it was as if everything was going perfectly according to his plan.

As the tornado of Dark Chakra was rushing towards him, the artificial bird slammed its wings fiercely and flew high up into the sky, using the altitude to its advantage it easily dodged the attack.

Immediately as the tornado passed away, the artificial bird flapped its wings again and shot down countless feathers.

Whiish… Whiish… Whiish… Whiish… Whiish… Whiish… Whiish… Whiish…

The feathers collided with the earth at an extremely fast speed and were nailed to the ground as a Kunai would.

After having dodged multiple attacks for so long, the ragged ninja was panting and did not have much stamina left anymore, so when he saw another rain that covered hundreds of meters of territory in the range of the attack; he had a look of despair on his face.

Soon, several of those feathers pierced through his body, and some were stuck on him, then there was an…

EXPLOSION…!!!

BOOOOM!!!

When the smoke and dust settled and the view became clear; it could be seen that the whole forest suffered severe damage as almost all the area was burnt to crisp, implying that the explosion was large enough to destroy the forest, but strangely enough, there was no damage on the one-meter vicinity where the ragged ninja lied in a pool of his own blood, although his life and death status was unknown at the moment.

After the enemy was successfully incapacitated, Shinno who did not act throughout the battle spoke in a complimentary tone, "Using explosions and physical attacks was indeed the most effective method to deal with someone who can easily absorb ninjutsu using the Dark Release Kekkei Genkai."

Hiruko nodded, "No Kekkei Genkai is perfect, so long as one master the right method to deal with them, winning is pretty much determined!"

With those words, the bird descended on the ground, Shinno jumped of the artificial bird and determined the state that the ragged ninja was in currently.

After confirming that he was indeed alive, Shinno injected the drug into the ragged ninja's bloodstream and then threw him on top of the artificial bird. "The Dark Release Kekkei Genkai has been captured, now all we need to do is to return to Amegakure, and wait for the others to bring the Kekkei Genkai users that they were assigned to bring, but I still wonder whether it would be possible for the leader to capture Hatake Kakashi?"

Hiruko firstly nodded then said with a confident expression, "I don't think there is anything to worry about it, the leader has the eyes of Rikudo Sennin, obviously Hatake Kakashi who only has a Sharingan would be no match to the leader, so obtaining the Sharingan shouldn't be much difficult, what I am more concerned about is Steel Release user, both Sasori, and Kakuzu are not the type to allow a good corpse to get away so easily. And then there is also some worry about the Swift Release user; if that person wants to escape; then stopping him is not so easy, unless you have the same level of speed then catching up to him is likely impossible for both Uchiha Shinchi and Biwa Juzo."

Shinno thought about it a little and said, "I don't think that will be an issue, as Uchiha Shinichi and Biwa Juzo's duo undoubtedly has the best teamwork out of all the duos, moreover, Uchiha Shinichi also has the Mangekyou Sharingan so he should be able to figure out something together with Juzo who can use Silent Killing."

Hiruko also thought about what Shinno said and then nodded, "I suppose that is true."

At this time, Shinno asked, "If all goes according to the plan then when are you sure to start the ritual?"

Hiruko said, "There will be a celestial phenomenon at the end of next month, and if all the Kekkei Genkai are successfully gathered, then I will try to complete the ritual ceremony during that celestial phenomenon."

Shinno's eyes flickered when he heard this, but masking it soon enough and not letting his thoughts be seen by Hiruko, he said with a smile, "I am really looking forward to seeing how things will change after this."

…

One of the Uchiha Training Grounds

The strange arrival of the person immediately made Hiiragi realize that the person in front of his not ordinary.

He immediately activated his three-tomoe Sharingan, and vowed to himself, 'I will not let the same thing that happened the previous time repeat again!'

The figure emerged out of the spiraling whirl and looked at Uchiha Hiiragi was had already raised his sword, activated his Sharingan, and stood in a battle-ready pose, then he cast a deep look at the pair of Sharingan spinning in his eye sockets, and chuckled, "You have a nice look in your eyes."

Looking at the black robe with golden patterns and the orange spiral mask that the other person wore, Hiiragi asked coldly, "Are you also a member of Amatsukami?"

Neither did the masked person denied nor did he agree.

"Where is Homusubi, where is he!?" – with a roar, Hiiragi dashed towards the masked person, and shouted, "Answer my question!"

In Hiiragi's heart, Amatsukami is indeed a very strong organization, But Homusubi is the only person he is truly afraid of; as for other members of Amatsukami? Hiiragi is not scared of them.

The masked man chuckled, "Why the hurry? Why do you want to know where Homusubi is so ardently!?"

Hiiragi's eyes become colder, "If you are here to play games, then you can die for all I care!" – finishing this sentence he immediately reached next to the masked and waved his sword with all his strength!

Wouch…

Accompanied by the sound of whistling wind, Hiiragi's sword traversed a perfect arc and slashed towards the masked man's throat.

But suddenly something that Hiiragi didn't anticipate happened, his attack that was supposed to have been too fast for the other party to be able to react, the attack that was meant to cleave off the enemy's neck of his torso in just one strike, that very same attack did not even give Hiiragi any feedback that he cut through the flesh of the enemy.

What happened was strange, the sword and him, both passed right through the enemy without even making momentary contact with the enemy, it was as if he passed right through a projection, it was as if what stood before his was not a person but a projection.

"Huh…?" – Hiiragi was confused.

Coming to a stop, Hiiragi turned back and glanced at the place where the masked-man or maybe some kind of projection stood?

At this time, Hiiragi had a puzzled look, and the three tomoe in his Sharingan were spinning, he was trying to see if what stood before him was some kind of Genjutsu.

While Hiiragi stood there in a stupor, the masked man also turned around and slowly walked towards him.

Looking at the approaching masked-man, and that similar indifferent and cold aura oozing off of him, Hiiragi instinctively trembled, and muttered, "Why am I feeling like this?... Why…? Am I…? A am I afraid of him? No… I am… not… I am not afraid of him!"

But no matter how much Hiiragi tried to reassure himself, his hand that carried the sword was shaking!

Hiiragi still gritted his teeth and raised his sword hand and waved fiercely, once… twice… thrice… fourth… fifth… again… again… and again… and again, and again, and again… and again… but no result, every time the sword passed right through the masked man's body, it was as if he is not even present here, yet he was there, laughing coldly!

"W-what are you? Are you even a person or some kind of ghost???" – shouted Hiiragi in hysteria.

"Perhaps I am the death itself." – masked-man muttered to no one.

At this point, Hiiragi has already started to back away, the sword in his hand dropped heavily to the ground, he turned around and wanted to run away but is that even possible?

The masked man grabbed Hiiragi's collar which did not allow Hiiragi to take even a single step and dragged him inside the spiraling whirl regardless of all the resistance Hiiragi tried to put.

Amidst the sound of Hiiragi's exclamation, shouts, and begging to let him go, his figure was distorted and disappeared into the spiraling whirl.

After the disappearance of Hiiragi, the masked man looked at the four faces carved on the Hokage Mountain at the other end of the village and then disappeared in a similar whirl, leaving the place to the strange silence where only the sound of cicadas echoed.

…

Hyuga Kuroto's home.

Poof…

With a cloud of white smoke, Kasai appeared before Kuroto and passed on a scroll to him.

Kuroto took the scroll and passed a thousand Ryo bills to the greedy cat. While the cat happily took the money and went away; Kuroto started reading the content written in the scroll, and after reading a bit, Kuroto's eyes narrowed as he muttered, "Sure enough I was right."

.

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Read up to Chapter - 512 on P.a.t.r.e.o.n. Page: p-atreon.com/Milta_translations